Viking Quest: Plundering the Norse Fjords in a 525-Oar Longboat in Search of the Ancestral Homeland

Those of us who bring you the automotive news log infinitely more air miles than road miles. Over time, this unhealthy seat-time imbalance makes editors cranky and irritable at best, and downright postal at worst. The cure: an epic road trip. Kim Reynolds drove our Volt from Detroit to Los Angeles; Edward Loh and Todd Lassa tag-teamed a drive from Tokyo to L.A. in a Suzuki Kizashi; Ron Kiino raced Europe's Orient Express in a Hyundai Genesis; and boss Angus MacKenzie's crazy travel schedule requires such frequent rebalancing that he participated in those last two trips, drove a Challenger on one lap of Europe, and conquered Australia's Outback in the Subaru named for it.

When the tedium of fact-checking buyer's-guide issues from airplane seats threatened to undo your technical director, I was encouraged to plan an outing. Fortuitously, an e-mail arrived with dramatic photos of graceful curving bridges along the Atlantic Road, and a steep and kinky ribbon of asphalt known as the Trollstigen -- both of which are located in my ancestral homeland of Norway. Please, Boss!? "Yes, I insist."
But what to drive? Fat tires and an amidships engine location would certainly help make the most of those twisty "trolls' steps." The roof must come off to afford full visibility of the spectacular and mostly vertical scenery. Ooh, and early September can bring rain or even snow at elevation, so let's specify all-wheel drive, too. That narrows the choice right down to a couple of kissing cousins: the Lamborghini Gallardo and Audi R8 Spyders. The less outrageous Audi seems a better fit with the spare, minimalist Scandinavian design ethic.

I'm just a quarter Norwegian (I'm reserving the remaining fractions for similar adventures), but my destination is the spot where Mom's Winther maiden name entered the family on April 2, 1817, in Fauske, north of the Arctic Circle. By starting the trip in Bergen -- Norway's second city, down in the heart of the fjords -- I hoped to also prove that Europe's best scenery and driving roads are not exclusively found in the Alps.

Bergen's brygge, or wharf, was a Hanseatic League trading center. From the 14th to the 18th centuries, powerful German businessmen ran the town from a row of colorful wooden buildings, so it seemed the perfect spot from which to launch this expedition in another powerful German. Just minutes outside of town, we observe an important trait of the Norwegians: They are avid tunnelers. Tunnels and ferries are the best way to navigate a country composed mostly of steep, rocky mountains that plunge straight into deep fjords. On one 32-mile stretch of the E16 highway from Bergen toward Oslo, we spend 27 miles in tunnels, including one that's 15.2 miles long. At the recommendation of psychologists, the Laerdal tunnel design incorporates three enlarged "cathedrals" with multi-hued sunset lighting to keep drivers from going "speed-blind" in the world's longest road tunnel. A fun tunnel noise game: cracking the exhaust valve open by accelerating through 3200 rpm, then making it stutter by quickly closing the throttle.

Watched Glacier: Boyabreen has been receding since the '30s. Later this century, you'll see a plane, wrecked in the icefield above in 1972, appear near the top.

A lunch stop in an unassuming train-station cafe in Voss confirms our suspicion that hideously high prices for everything are not just a Bergen thing. Two hot dogs and fries plus two prefab sandwiches and four Cokes set us back $72. Had we swapped beers for the Cokes we'd have topped $100 and risked ending the trip at a breathalyzer spot-check--Norway's legal blood-alcohol limit is a buzz-killing 0.02 percent.By mid-afternoon the rain lifts just long enough to squeeze in a stop at Gudvangen's Viking Valley. Head Viking Georg Hansen has assembled eight Vikings to meet with us around the fire in their longhouse for a bit of Viking 101. I've purchased a horned helmet for the occasion, but learn that this affectation was inserted into our cultural memory centuries later during the Romantic period, based on erroneous accounts of northern people who predated the Vikings and who, in any case, got horny only for religious rituals. (Horns would only give the guy trying to slash your throat a handle to hang onto.) Georg explains that metal helmets were pretty rare in Viking times, but he dons a replica of one that was found in an archeological dig, and sure enough, it has no horns.

Troll Patrol: Opened in 1936, the Trollstigen replaced the harrowing Klovstien packhorse trail. Though it's listed as the world's eighth most dangerous road, no serious accidents have been reported.

My ancestors' ancestors were trading and projecting their power as far south as North Africa centuries before the Germans came to Bergen. Vikings were clever and honest if ruthless traders. Georg shows me his broadsword, which was forged from 1200 smaller pieces of steel. He shares a saga (unverifiable) of Vikings discovering these unbreakable swords in France and returning with a ship full of gold to buy all the French swords they could, then returning and using them to sack Paris. Another saga describes a cold and bedraggled Viking warrior offering to trade his sword for a farmer's cloak, but the farmer refused, saying, "How can a sword keep me warm?" The Viking responded, "Without your head you will not need the cloak for warmth!" He did bargain in good faith first. Then we share a horn of mjod (mead), with the admonition that a smart Viking man aims the point of the horn "at his horn" to prevent a wave of the sticky stuff from flooding his beard. As we prepare to bid our Viking pals adjo, Georg offers to trade his sword for my Spyder, which retails for the equivalent of $800,000 after taxes. Gulp.

Deutsh Treats: Bergen's historic Brygge, or wharf, is lined with these skinny but deep Hanseatic League-era (1360-1754 AD) wooden buildings, where German merchants traded dried fish from northern Norway for grains from the continent.

Once safely out of the Viking Valley, we bivouac as vacationing Scandinavians do -- in a rural hostel with communal baths, kitchen, and living room. At $93 per room including $20 for linens (locals bring their own), it's almost a third the rate of our Bergen hotel. This location was chosen for its proximity to the spectacularly ornate Borgund stave church, but we find the church enshrouded in scaffolding.

Great read! Norway's my homecountry, and I spent this summer going on a roadtrip with my girlfriend visiting a lot of the same places as you did. Bloody shame I had to do it in a pickup truck though, not a mid-engined 500+ HP supercar. :)